The impact of death awareness on sizes of self-representational objects

Citation

McCabe S, Arndt J & Vail KE (2018) The impact of death awareness on sizes of self-representational objects. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57 (1), pp. 174-188. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12227

Abstract
People seem to have a tendency to increase the relative size of self-representational objects. Prior research suggests that motivational factors may fuel that tendency, so the present research built from terror management theory to examine whether existential motivations—engendered by concerns about death—may have similar implications for self-relevant size biases. Specifically, across two studies (total N = 288) we hypothesized that reminders of death would lead participants to inflate the size of self-representational objects. Both studies suggested that relative to reminders of pain, mortality salience led participants to construct larger clay sculptures of themselves (vs. others; Study 1) and a larger ostensible video-game avatar for the self (vs. others; Study 2).

Keywords
mortality salience; size-bias; terror management theory; self-representation

Journal
British Journal of Social Psychology: Volume 57, Issue 1